looking at Review Santa Fe participants

I was happy to meet Jonathan Blaustein at Review Santa Fe as I’m a big fan of his work. He’s taking a critical look at the world around us and explores subjects with a powerful simplicity. The Value of a Dollar is a timely series about the cost of food around the world. Jonathan received his MFA from Pratt in Brooklyn and now lives in New Mexico and is a teacher at the University of New Mexico-Taos. He was nominated for the Santa Fe Prize for Photography in 2009.

“I’m interested in the way photography is used to deceive. Millions, if not billions of advertising dollars are spent annually photographing food and obfuscating reality. Fast food conglomerates are certainly the worst culprits, but everywhere we see glamorized versions of what we eat.

Food is clearly a potent symbol of wealth, power, health, and globalization for the 21st Century. Its value is determined by the price of oil, its transnational transport contributes to Global Warming, its ingredients entice America into obesity, and its production processes animals into floss and mush.

The photographs in this project attempt to strip back the artifice; to depict food items as they were sold, (minus packaging,) without styling, retouching, or artificial lighting. Each image represents a dollar’s worth of food purchased from various markets in New Mexico. The subjects exist as equivalent amounts of commodity, and nothing more. The resulting images allow for a meditation on the power and seductive nature of the photographic medium itself.”

Jonathan has other interesting series. His newest, Romeo, about following a cow from slaugther to the table, makes you think twice about ordering your next steak.

one dollar’s worth of shurfine flour

double cheeseburger from Mcdonalds…

candy necklaces from China…

organic grapefruit from the gourmet market…

conventional grapefruit from Supersave…

shurfine white bread…

early season organic blueberries from California…

tea biscuits from Spain…

salad with ranch dressing from Burger King…

organic basmati rice from Whole Foods…

saffron…

beef shank from Supersave…